Faces of Dementia

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Faces of Dementia

• Elderly Care Ministry

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What is Dementia?

• A non-specific syndrome
• Collection of symptoms that do not necessarily
  have the same cause
• Can contain many symptoms
• Can look different in different people
• Can set in immediately (as a result of injury)
• Can set in slowly (as a result of illness e.g.
  Parkinsons or Alzheimers)

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Symptoms Facets

• Memory Loss
• Short-term
• Long-term
• Lack of
• Attention
• Planning
• Flexibility
• Semantic memory
• Apathy

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Symptoms Facets

• Language Problems
• Difficulty producing names of people or objects
• Vague or meaningless speech (thing, it)
• Long, circumlocutory phrases
• Comprehension problems
• Echolalia echoing what is heard
• Palilalia repeating sounds or words

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Symptoms Facets

• Apraxia problems with motor coordination
• Cooking, dressing, drawing
• Agnosia failure to recognize or identify objects
• People, faces, known or mundane objects, their
  own faces
• Executive Functioning

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Symptoms Facets

• Executive Functioning
• Difficulty with problem solving
• Difficulty initiating or stopping complex
  behavior
• FACT 20-30 of people who have dementia suffer
  from depression

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Symptoms Facets

• There is generally no cure for dementia as a
  result of chronic illness
• In addition to the cognitive and motor
  impairments of dementia, the individual may be
  cognizant enough to know that something is
  happening to them and they are declining. As a
  result, they may be very scared, angry,
  depressed, or bitter.

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Suggestions

• Follow their conversation and do not react or try
  to correct them when things do make sense, or
  they say the same thing over and over again.
• They may say very insensitive things, or use an
  inappropriate amount of emotion when speaking.
  Track with them and roll with their emotion. Do
  not react to their inappropriate expressions or
  affect.

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Suggestions

• They may not talk at all, in which case you can
  do the talking. You can introduce yourself, tell
  them about yourself, summarize the message, offer
  to read a Bible passage to them, give a gospel
  presentation, or tell them your testimony.

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Suggestions

• They may even make motions to touch or strike
  you. Roll with their motions and turn it into
  something positive (demonstration)

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Faces of Dementia

• For this exercise, please divide into groups, and
  take turns taking on the personas described in
  the profiles. Other group members will attempt
  to interact with you.

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Faces of Dementia

• Profile A You are Mr./Ms. Anderson, 89 years old
  with dementia. You does not talk at all but
  makes some noises with your mouth at times, when
  you seem to be experiencing some sort of emotion
  (its hard to tell). You are also blind.
  However, you seem to understand language.

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Faces of Dementia

• Profile B You are Mr./Ms. Ornery, 85 years old
  with dementia. You are constantly cranky and
  male rude remarks about how other people look,
  including whoever you are talking to. You also
  tend to strike others when you are mad (which is
  pretty much all the time). You strike by
  swinging your arm sideways and hitting whoever is
  talking to you on the shoulder.

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Faces of Dementia

• Profile C You are Mr./Ms. Circumlocution, 79
  years old with dementia. You love to talk about
  yourself, and describe how you grew up in
  Oakland, have 3 kids. One is a doctor, the other
  is a librarian, and another owns a small grocery
  store in Berkeley. You love your 6
  grandchildren. Your hobbies are singing,
  gardening, and cooking, as well as taking walks.
  However, you often forget what you have said and
  you repeat yourself. You also like to ask the
  other person about themselves and their
  families/hobbies, but forget what questions
  youve already asked and often ask the same
  question. Sometimes you also forget whether you
  like something or not, and will make
  contradictory statements in the same conversation
  (for example, you might say that your favorite
  food is Italian, and also say that you hate
  Italian food in the same conversations).

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Faces of Dementia

• Profile D You are Mr./Ms. Hallucination. You
  talk normally, but often have strange beliefs
  about the person youre talking to. When someone
  starts to talk to you, you suddenly have the
  belief that you hate this person intently. You
  might start yelling at them. You might think
  that they want to hurt you. When left alone
  though, you are pretty quiet and reserved.